Hi,Thank you for giving me a very nice trip to Ba Be Lake! It was amazing! I had a best tour during my visit to Vietnam. The trip was well-organized, the tour guide was so nice, the homestay was cozy and the Ba Be Lake was so impressive!

Muong Khuong and Bat Sat: the two new, wild, natural and attractive destinations

On the two northeast and southwest bows of the Lao Cai province, in addition to the two famous destinations, Sapa and Bac Ha, recently engaged in tourism planning of Lao Cai are the two suburban districts Muong Khuong and Bat Sat. These are not just the places with the mountains, the beautifully natural landscape, suitable for eco-tourism but also a land with rich cultures of the peoples, to meet the needs of community tourism, discovery of tourists from everywhere.

"Awaken" Muong Khuong tourism potential

To make the power of potential out reality, with the assistance of Lao Cai Culture - Sports and Tourism Department, Muong Khuong District People's Committee has planned to invest 34.3 billions VND to restore and upgrade the heritages to serve the tourists in the period 2011 - 2015.

Muong Khuong district is on the northeastern tourists route from the city of Lao Cai to Muong Khuong, Si Ma Cai, Bac Ha.. In the period 2011 - 2015, Muong Khuong has invested in restoration of four clusters of caves and constructions of 6 trade villages, 6 villages with traditional cultures to serve tourism development. Muong Khuong will be connected to Si Ma Cai district, Bac Ha by the 4E highway which has been restoring and upgrading. Along with this route there are popular culture markets such as Sin Cheng, Can Cau (Si Ma Cai) and the Bac Ha central market. The hydroelectric lake Coc Ly with an area of 600 hectares will be put into tourism exploitation this year.

Along this route, there are about 20 unexplored caves. Muong Khuong has 16 caves scattered in 15 villages and towns of the district. It will continuously invest to renovate the next 11 caves, including the set of caves Ham Rong, the cave with waterfall Ta Lam (Muong Khuong), the Nam Ooc cave (Nam Lu), Seo Tung cave (Tung Chung Pho).. invest to build the clusters of brocade village Sapaa 9, Sapaa 10, Sapaa 11, Coc Ngu, Na An, Di Thang and another 6 cultural villages.

According to Pham Ba Uyen, the vice chairman of Muong Khuong district, the conservation and embellishment projects for tourism development 2011-2015 is a solution to the economic restructuring, moving a division of labor from manufacturing agriculture to commercial - services, to create new jobs and increase local people incomes, ensuring the preservation and promotion traditional culture of ethnic groups. In 2011, after the bridge on highway 4E from Muong Khuong to Si Ma Cai completed, there has been hundreds of tourists visited and explored.

Ms. Amee Evans - a tourist from Australia said: "If you go to Lao Cai and love discovery travel, select one of the two new routes on the northeast and southwest of Lao Cai. No one of them is longer than 150km but you can spend 5 to 7 days tour on each because there are so many new wild, natural and attractive places to keep you stay."

Bat Sat creating a new image of tourism.

According to Bui Huu Loi, the Secretary of Bat Sat District, the district has developed strategies to create a new image of tourism here. It has gradually improved the system of State management on tourism, arranged officers in charge of tourism, professional training classes for staff working in tourism, village heads, hamlet heads, families located in areas of tourism development. Determining the strength of Bat Sat as trekking and resorts tourism to develop in socialization, mobilization of all economic sectors, households participations.

With the two travel routes mentioned above when in operation, Lao Cai will achieve the target of receiving over 1 million visitors a year and be in capable of "retaining" tourists longer, increase the local revenues and build tourism to be a strong trade, help reduce poverty.